


Post-mortem

by domesticadventures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Coda, Episode: s11e14 The Vessel, Headspace, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 07:55:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6321262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticadventures/pseuds/domesticadventures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He finds Cas’ still-damp coat hanging over the back of a chair. Picking it up is familiar, almost. It isn’t the first time that this is the only piece of Cas he’s been left with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Post-mortem

**Author's Note:**

> god bless [michelle](http://captainshakespear.tumblr.com/) for being willing to suffer through betaing this <3

It takes a few hours after Dean realizes what’s happened to Cas -- he has to think of it that way, can’t bear to think of it as _something Cas has done_ \-- for the reality of it to fully sink in.

When it finally does, it hits him all at once, the realization that maybe this is it. Maybe this is the time Cas is going to be taken from him and won’t be given back.

He can’t stop thinking of Billie’s promise, the one relayed to him through Sam. He knows, he just _knows,_ that it extends to Cas. Knows inherently that the reapers consider Cas a Winchester.

He just doesn’t know if Cas considers himself a Winchester.

He’s starting to think there are a lot of things he doesn’t know about Cas.

Dean sits alone at the table and he thinks, _Maybe this is it._ Maybe Cas is gone and here Dean is, still alive, and Cas isn’t even going to be waiting for him at the finish line. And in the meantime, he has a dozen different phones and not a single one has a single picture of Cas on it.

He wonders how long it’ll take before he forgets what Cas looked like, what he sounded like; before all of that will be replaced by the way Lucifer wears Cas’ skin, the way he works Cas’ voice.

He finds Cas’ still-damp coat hanging over the back of a chair. Picking it up is familiar, almost. It isn’t the first time that this is the only piece of Cas he’s been left with. It’s the first time there’s been anything in the pockets, though. In one he finds the phone he gave Cas -- no good now, of course, waterlogged as it is, not that it would be any good even if it were still functional -- and in the other, the wallet, and inside the wallet half a dozen credit cards with fake names.

He pulls the cards out, setting them in a neat stack on the table, and then he gets the laptop.

He goes to one website after another and sets up accounts for every single card from Cas’ wallet. He does this thing Cas never bothered with, makes it so he can have the online access Cas never needed, and then he goes through the histories one by one, diligently does his research like he’s working a case. He looks at Cas’ purchases in different stores and restaurants and gas stations in different towns in different states and tries to piece together the life Cas has had since Dean gave these to him, the life Dean never asked him about.

He can trace how close Cas was to human on any given day by looking at whether or not he needed to purchase food, at how many times he needed to eat. He tries to pick out Cas’ favorites based on the number of recurring purchases at any given restaurant until he notices that Cas foregoes the big chains in favor of local businesses. He learns that sometimes Cas goes to the movies by himself and spends more on shitty theater food than on his matinee ticket. He learns Cas has been to museums and plays and national parks, has been cramming in as much human experience as possible like he knew his time was limited.

He can tell when Cas gets his car back by the change in charges at gas stations, the switch from the smaller tanks to the 21 gallon behemoth obvious as the dollar amounts nearly double. He learns that Cas likes to try to get the pump to roll over to a nice round number when he fills the tank -- there are charges for $20.00, $20.00, $20.00, and then, later, after the return of the Continental, a rather frustrating $30.01. He catches himself smiling, imagining Cas’ reaction, but then his stomach flips and he stops.

He gets to the last card. He learns that Cas has a favorite coffee shop in Smith Center. Went there day after day, week after week. He thinks, _Why? Was he meeting--_

The jealousy just starting to uncoil in his gut turns sour in an instant.

Cas wasn’t meeting anyone. He was waiting.

Waiting, Dean realizes, for him. For a call. For an invite into Dean’s life. Because Cas was -- Cas _is_ a Winchester, but he doesn’t know.

Just like there are so many things Dean doesn’t know, like if the employees at the coffee shop a mere twenty minute drive from the bunker recognized Cas. If they knew him by the fake name on his card. If they noticed when he stopped coming by. If some barista in a small Kansas town knew something was wrong before Dean did.

Dean has to close the laptop, then. Has to get up and go take a hot shower, has to let the sound of running water drown out his thoughts.

It isn’t as cleansing as he’d hoped. No matter how hot he runs the water, he can’t rid himself of the feeling that he just performed an autopsy on Cas’ life, that he learned all these things about him post-mortem.

**Author's Note:**

> now also with [a much happier follow-up](http://archiveofourown.org/comments/70000561) in the comments whee


End file.
